Techsplanations

It's time for Tech 101! Consider using this series as an educational entry point for your friends and relatives.

For the following posts in this series, please refer to this glossary as a reference for the key terms (in bold) and concepts involved. If you already have a good grasp on the topics presented, consider using this series as an educational entry point for friends and relatives.

Featured Post: What is the internet?

The internet consists of a global suite of networks that connect to each other and that transmit information using common protocols for how to handle that information. In other words, the internet is a bunch of smaller networks that can talk to each other to form a much bigger network.

Where access networks perform routing and distribution of data, backbone networks carry data in bulk between different parts of the internet. As far as anatomical analogies go, backbone networks are probably more like the spinal cord than any skeletal elements, but, you know, pretty close.